by Fronetics | Sep 4, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Strategy
The biggest challenges for B2B marketing, according to a recent report? Finding leads that convert and engaging the right target audience.
Highlights:
- Measuring social media ROI is a challenge for 58% of respondents, and 39% report that proving ROI is the biggest hurdle to securing C-suite buy-in.
- Only 23% of brands have a dedicated social media team.
- 60% of marketers report content marketing is their most valuable technique for lead nurturing.
Chief Marketer’s 2019 B2B Marketing Outlook report is out, and it’s full of revealing statistics for B2B marketers industry-wide. The survey studied 209 B2B marketers in more than 20 verticals, getting a bird’s eye view of biggest challenges and trends in B2B marketing.
Here are the top 10 stats you need to be aware of.
10 B2B marketing stats from Chief Marketer’s 2019 report
1) For 58% of respondents, measuring ROI is the top challenge surrounding social media marketing.
Measuring social media ROI is notoriously difficult, though certainly not impossible. For well over half of the survey respondents, it proved the greatest challenge when it comes to social media.
65% of respondents reported engagement as one of their biggest social media challenge, while 45% cited the challenge of having enough content. Adequate bandwidth to respond to social followers and post frequently and inadequate social budget (24% each) were lower on the list of social concerns.
2) Only 23% of brands have a dedicated social media team.
We’ve written before about how social media management is a herculean task that falls all-to-often to an overworked marketing team. Chief Marketing’s survey found that, for a vast majority of B2B brands (75%), their marketing team is in charge of maintaining social media presence.
Even as social media is becoming increasingly effective at ushering leads through the sales funnel, only 23% of brands surveyed have invested in a dedicated social media team, while 15% are outsourcing their social media management.
3) Articles/blog posts and reviews/customer testimonials are tied as the two most effective types of content for moving prospects through the sales funnel.
45% of respondents reported that articles and blog posts, as well as reviews and customer testimonials, are the most effective content types for moving prospects through the sales funnel.
Following closely behind, 32% reported whitepapers and 31% reported video as most effective. Partner content, at 26%, came next, while social media is gaining efficacy, coming in at 22%.
Respondents reported that for all content types, the visual aspects were key. For Informa Engage, for example, more visual content is performing well, says Tricia Syed, Vice President for Marketing Strategy and Execution. “In some markets, traditional whitepapers and webinars are still hugely popular, but we’re getting more visual with e-books [to illustrate] data.”
4) 39% of survey respondents reported being unable to prove ROI to C-suite as the biggest obstacle for getting approval for marketing expenditures.
Just as proving social media ROI is a poses a challenge for B2B marketing, proving overall content marketing ROI to win C-suite buy-in can be equally daunting. 39% reported it as the biggest hurdle to getting marketing expenditures approved.
46% of respondents cited the challenge of budgets that are focused elsewhere, while 33% reported that executives still don’t understand the need for marketing expenditures.
5) For 60% of respondents, content marketing is the most valuable technique for lead nurturing.
Content marketing is reported by 60% of marketers as their most valuable technique for lead nurturing. Email marketing led the pack at 62%, while in-person marketing took a close third place at 57%. When it comes to lead nurturing for B2B marketing, social media was relatively low on the list, reported by only 20% of respondents as their most valuable technique.
6) Only 22% of respondents have an in-house editorial team dedicated to content creation.
While content marketing is overwhelmingly reported by marketers as being a highly effective technique for generating, nurturing, and converting leads, relatively few brands have chosen to invest in a dedicated in-house editorial team for content creation. Instead, a whopping 80% of marketers are charged with creating their own content.
“That’s a surprising disconnect,” says James Furbush, B2B marketing manager of Lord Hobo Brewing. “I’m not surprised marketing teams are creating content, but if you’re going to be that focused on content marketing, having an editorial team is an important investment.”
Perhaps even more surprisingly, only 23% of respondents are taking advantage of the opportunity to outsource content creation, an excellent alternative for companies who are unable to afford a dedicated in-house team.
7) 42% say that their organizations will increase martech budgets in 2019.
Martech, or the fusion of marketing and technology, is taking over B2B marketing. 42% of survey respondents reported that their martech budgets will be increasing in 2019, while 40% said that existing martech budgets will remain the same. Only 4% reported that they anticipate a decrease in martech budget.
When asked what types of martech they plan on investing in, 45% of respondents pointed to marketing automation, 43% to video, 40% to email, 38% to customer experience, and 37% to social media management.
Interestingly, despite all the discussion surrounding AI, only 9% of businesses surveyed report that they are considering investing in these technologies.
8) When it comes to generating new leads, 55% reported that finding leads that convert is their biggest challenge.
More than half of survey respondents pointed to the challenge of finding leads that ultimately convert as the greatest obstacle to generating new leads. 57% reported that their biggest challenge is getting targeted prospects to engage with their brands.
What’s interesting about these numbers is that, while marketers are reporting these issues as lead-generation obstacles, they are simultaneously pointing to content marketing as their most effective tool for lead nurturing and conversion.
9) For 44% of respondents, email is a top source of B2B leads.
When it comes to which channels are the largest sources of B2B leads, email leads the pack, with 44% of respondents putting it first. Online searches came in at a close second at 43%, and live events came in at 41%.
A respectable 36% of respondents cited content marketing as a top source of B2B leads, while 22% pointed to social media.
Knowing where leads are coming from is only part of the picture. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the channel that produced the leads with the highest ROI was email for just under half (49%) of survey respondents.
10) 56% say cost of conversion is the metric that matters most in marketing attribution.
When asked which metrics matter most in marketing attribution, cost of conversion topped the list at 56%, followed closely by amount of time to convert at 53%. Other important metrics included channel (34%), first click (29%), and last click (22%).
“At the end of the day, the most important takeaway when setting up campaign attribution is to think about your goal,” said one respondent. “Start with the end in mind, reverse engineer your marketing campaign, and set up ‘mile markers’ along the way to track trends in your prospects’ digital footprints.”
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by Fronetics | Jun 18, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain, Website Development
The percentage of visitors that stay on your site is key to lead conversion and search engine rankings. Here are our top tips to reduce your website bounce rate.
Highlights:
- A high bounce rate will compromise your site’s search engine rankings.
- Slow website load times are a major cause of bounces.
- Publish high-quality, visually appealing content with relevant keywords and meta data.
When it comes to evaluating the performance of your website, bounce rate is a key indicator. But what does this term really mean for supply chain marketing? After we take a deeper dive into what a bounce rate is and why it’s important to track, we’ll offer 10 ideas to reduce your website bounce rate.
Bounce rate defined
Simply put, your website’s bounce rate is the percentage of users who enter your website and immediately leave, or “bounce,” without visiting any additional pages on your site. Bounces happen when visitors click the back button, navigate to a different URL, close their browser, or leave a page open without taking action.
Having a high bounce rate can be an indication that your site failed to convince the visitor to explore further or act on your call-to-action (CTA). Of course, no website, no matter how effective, has a 0% bounce rate. Some users are bound to leave your website without taking any action. But a healthy bounce rate is a key indicator of website success.
While bounce rate ranges vary based on industry and page type, the general ranges are:
- 80% or higher: bad
- 70%-80%: poor
- 50%-70%: average
- 30%-50%: excellent
- 20% or lower: likely a tracking error
However, the truth about good versus bad bounce rates is more nuanced than these ranges. Bounce rates can vary widely based on website type, channel, and the device visitors are using.
For example, blog posts typically have a high bounce rate (between 60% and 90%), simply because an effective post will give a user what he or she came for, and there’s no further need to explore your site. This doesn’t mean your blog is performing poorly, as bounce rate is just one in a list of metrics needed to assess the overall performance of a site.
Why does bounce rate matter?
Aside from the fairly obvious fact that a high bounce rate means that visitors aren’t being converted into customers on your site, there’s another serious ramification to your bounce numbers: search engine results. According to a recent study from SEMRush, “Bounce rate is the fourth most important ranking factor on search engine results pages.”
Every time a visitor bounces from your page, it signals to search engine algorithms that your site isn’t what the searcher was looking for, and your ranking will suffer. Having a handle on your bounce rate will help you form a clear picture of how your website is performing, as well as give you understanding of one of the key factors in determining your search engine ranking.
10 ways to reduce your website bounce rate
1) Keep an eye on your page load times.
A major cause of bounces is long loading times, particularly on mobile devices. If your page load time is slow, consider switching to HTTP/2.
2) Make sure navigation is easy.
For your website to entice visitors to stick around, it needs to be clearly labeled and easy for prospects to find and get to what they’re looking for.
3) Evaluate your first impression.
You only get one first impression. When it comes to your website, this means clear navigation menus, engaging headlines, easy-to-read text, subheadings and bullets, and minimal pop-ups or auto-play videos.
4) Publish high-quality content.
Perhaps this goes without saying, but there’s no substitute for high-quality content when it comes to keeping visitors engaged on your site.
5) Optimize your meta data.
A meta description is the text that appears below your website’s URL in search engine results. This text should accurately represent what the page contains, which helps ensure that visitors find what they’re looking for when they click.
6) Create a quality design.
Clean, compelling design is important for keeping users on your page. Ideally, your site’s design should not only be functional and intuitive, but aesthetically pleasing.
7) Optimize mobile experience.
Bearing in mind that mobile users typically have even less patience than desktop users, your site’s mobile version should have a quick load speed, clean design elements, and easy navigability.
8) Use relevant keywords.
The keywords you choose should not only be relevant to your audience’s search queries, but they should reflect what visitors will actually find on your site. If your site ranks high for a keyword that doesn’t relate to the majority of your content, then users searching for that keyword will quickly leave.
9) Write good calls-to-action (CTAs).
A good CTA is key not only to converting leads but also to reducing your website bounce rate. Ideally, your CTA should be clearly visible within the first few seconds of being on a page, and it should be compelling.
10) Use images and videos.
We live in a visual world, so naturally, this type of content connects best with users. Statistic after statistic supports the idea that visual content is dominating the internet. To reduce your website bounce rate, include visuals that keep your audience interested.
What tricks are you using to reduce your website bounce rate?
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by Fronetics | May 14, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
As the performance gap between high and low digitally achieving companies widens, taking steps toward digital maturity is increasingly important.
Highlights:
- Increasingly, digital maturity is a predictor of overall market success.
- Benefits include reduced costs and time to market and improved product quality and customer satisfaction.
- Companies at any stage of digital maturity can take steps to improve.
Digital maturity, or the process of a company’s learning to respond appropriately to the emerging digitally competitive environment, is increasingly accounting for a widening performance gap among B2B businesses. And the gap will continue to widen: Companies who are adapting well to the digital age will increasingly outperform those who lag behind.
[bctt tweet=”Boston Consulting Group’s second annual survey found that while 25% of the companies surveyed qualified as “digital champions,” nearly one-third are significantly behind in their digital maturity. ” username=”Fronetics”]
Boston Consulting Group’s second annual survey of nearly 2,000 companies in the United States and Europe found that while 25% of the companies surveyed qualified as “digital champions,” nearly one-third are significantly behind in their digital maturity. The study found that “increased levels of digital maturity significantly improved competitive advantage along multiple performance indicators, such as time to market, cost efficiency, product quality, and customer satisfaction.”
BCG’s study used the company’s respected Digital Acceleration Index (DAI) to make comparisons among companies. And it offers some hopeful takeaways for businesses at any point on the spectrum. For example, “an increase in digital maturity of 25 DAI points improves the likelihood of reaching a superior performance for time to market, and cost efficiency doubles.”
These are powerful numbers. And BCG also points out that very few companies have achieved full digital marketing maturity — which means that essentially everyone should be taking note. Our infographic below looks at why digital maturity is important, and how companies can take steps toward achieving it.
The benefits of digital maturity
(Made with Canva)
BCG’s study aimed to quantify the value of improving digital maturity to impressive results. Some of the most significant benefits the study found were:
- Reduced cost-per-action in online transactions
- Increased online transactions
- Improved return on advertising spending
- Operational improvements from automation
- Reduced workload
- Increased competitive advantage
- Reduced time to market
- Greater cost efficiency
- Improved product quality
- Better customer satisfaction
Achieving digital maturity
No matter where they are in the process of achieving digital maturity, companies can improve and accelerate their progress. In particular, companies should focus their efforts to reap the benefits of digital marketing maturity:
- For improved time to market: Focus on building capabilities like digital marketing and personalization.
- For greater cost efficiency: Devote resources to digitize the technological enablers, such as increased automation in everything from production to marketing.
- For better product quality: Digital leadership is key. Fostering a strong digital culture company-wide and investing in digital talent will result in higher-quality digital products.
- For increased customer satisfaction: Focus on digital customer journeys and personalized offerings.
The bottom line
Digital maturity will increasingly separate the herd. Digital drives performance across B2B industries. It’s time for the supply chain to stop looking at technology as a cost center and start seeing it as a profit driver and competitive advantage in the market.
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by Fronetics | May 8, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Brand awareness is key in optimizing your content marketing efforts but can be challenging to quantify. Here are four metrics to help you measure brand awareness.
Highlights:
- Use tools, like SharedCount, to track the number of times a piece of your content has been shared across different social media platforms.
- Use the analytics from blog share bars to track the popularity of your posts and help shape content for your editorial calendar.
- Taking the time to measure brand awareness will ultimately help you in optimizing your digital marketing efforts.
Video transcript:
I’m Katie Russell and I’m a marketing strategist here at Fronetics. Today I’m going to talk to you about four ways to measure brand awareness for your packaging company.
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers – both potential and current – are able to recognize your brand. It is key in optimizing your digital marketing efforts, but it can be hard to quantify. Here are four metrics to help you start measuring brand awareness for your packaging company.
1. Social media reach
Social media reach is the total number of people that your content can reach across social media platforms. Use tools like SharedCount to track the number of times a piece of your content has been shared across different social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. This can help you figure out what platforms perform best for your content and can also help you shape the kind of content that you’re putting on social media platforms.
2. Brand mentions
How people talk about your packaging company online? If they are, you need to know about it. Try tracking tools like Google Alerts or Hootsuite to make sure that you know every single time someone talks about your packaging brand or any of your products or services.
3. Blog shares
Here are Fronetics, we talk a lot about the importance of having a blog that posts valuable and informative content to your readers. What’s also important is giving your readers the ability to share this content. It’s as easy as adding a share tool to the side of your blog posts. This helps you reach a larger audience and gain views from people that normally wouldn’t see your content. You can also use the analytics from these share bars to track the popularity of your posts and help shape content for your editorial calendar.
4. Search volume
Use tools like Google Adwords or Moz to track searches for your brand, products, even your blog and social media posts. It can help in refining your keywords that you use throughout your content to know specifically what people are searching for when they’re searching for your packaging brand.
Taking the time to measure brand awareness will ultimately help you in optimizing your digital marketing efforts and will also help increase leads. IF you need more information or need help getting started measuring your brand awareness, visit us at fronetics.com.
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by Fronetics | May 2, 2019 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
As automation technologies become increasingly sophisticated, companies throughout the supply chain are realizing the beneficial impact of automation on materials handling.
Highlights:
- Manufacturers of automation technologies are predicted to grow significantly over the next 5 years.
- Automating the “first mile” of the supply chain helps reduce labor challenges and leads to increased productivity.
- Robotics technologies offer greater capacity for data collection, facilitating informed process decisions.
While the impact of automation on the “last mile” of the supply chain is often the subject of public interest, automation in the “first mile” deserves just as much attention. Advanced robotics are increasingly ensuring accuracy — while minimizing or even eliminating human involvement in various processes — at every stage of the supply chain. Industry experts are predicting an ever-growing impact of automation on materials handling, with companies reaping the benefits up and down the supply chain.
Particularly in the materials-handling sector, human capital is increasingly difficult to recruit and maintain. Additionally, labor costs in global markets such as India and China are rising. Naturally, companies are increasingly inclined to replace or redeploy human labor, with the help of automated material-handling systems.
Not to mention, the increasing sophistication of machine-learning capabilities or AI within available automation technologies allows for even greater productivity. And there’s strong reason to believe that we’re only seeing the beginning of what automation can do. Vendors who create these technologies are investing heavily in R&D, aggressively attempting to expand their product offerings to meet specific industry demands while complying with the complex standards and regulations in place.
Quantifying the costs and impact of automation on materials handling
The robust growth in the robotics-equipment-manufacturing sector demonstrates that the materials-handling industry is investing in automation. Thanks to the demand for high-performance robotics systems, New Equipment Digest (NED) predicts that within the materials-handling-equipment sector, the robotics segment will grow by over 8%, reaching $20 billion by the year 2024. The overall material-handling-equipment market is expected to surpass $190 billion by the same year, according to a growth forecast report by Global Market Insights, Inc.
“Growing automation capabilities in the manufacturing space coupled with increasing penetration of advanced technologies, such as IoT, RFID, and AI, are expected to drive the material-handling-equipment market growth,” predicts the NED. These technologies are already increasing productivity and throughput in the materials-handling sector and reducing the potential for human error. The predicted growth in the manufacturing of robotics equipment points to the increasingly positive impact of automation supply chain-wide.
Of course, automation is not without its challenges. Companies face technical issues involved in implementation, not to mention the large capital outlay required to invest in costly equipment and technologies. With increased technical sophistication and network utilization, there are threats to cybersecurity, requiring companies to invest in measures to protect their technology.
Robotics-equipment manufacturers recognize that while automation offers significant benefits for materials handling, companies need to study potential impact before making these costly investments.
Many manufacturers are offering tools for quantifying the impact of automation on materials handling. OTTO Motors, a manufacturer of self-driving-vehicles, offers an ROI calculator, allowing potential buyers the opportunity to receive an easy ROI estimate. Manufacturers are also increasingly offering simulations of materials-handling systems, allowing potential customers to determine efficacy, test designs, and study new procedures without disrupting operations.
Realizing the benefits of automation for materials handling
Beyond the well-known benefits, such as decreased costs and increased productivity, automating materials-handling processes can offer a variety of additional advantages to companies’ first-mile operations. In fact, streamlining these processes and reducing costs has its own positive repercussions throughout a company’s operations, as it allows for increased speed, productivity, and accuracy operation-wide.
[bctt tweet=”Automating materials-handling processes has its own positive repercussions throughout a company’s operations, as it allows for increased speed, productivity, and accuracy operation-wide.” username=”Fronetics”]
Additional benefits of automating materials handling include:
- The access to real-time data provided by automated technologies allows for more complete Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Labor shortages and high turnover are some of the primary challenges in materials handling – automation shields manufacturers from these challenges, while allowing human labor to be repurposed into more intricate tasks.
- Implementing technology in the materials-handling phase of the supply chain can connect to other automated processes within the factory.
- The availability of data and the ability to leverage it allows adjustments to be made in real time, meaning more flexible manufacturing.
The bottom line is that, while it can be costly at the outset, automation at the front end of the supply chain, namely materials handling, offers rich and diverse benefits sector-wide.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Feb 28, 2019 | Blog, Strategy, Supply Chain, Warehousing & Materials Handling
If you want to keep your customers satisfied, you need to keep things moving in your facility. Use these tips to keep up the pace and increase warehouse and distribution center efficiency.
Highlights:
- Speed has become the name of the game when it comes to staying competitive in the global supply chain.
- Keep your priorities in mind when organizing your warehouse, including your fastest-moving products.
- Digital technology can take the guesswork out of inventory and warehouse management with employees scanning products every step of the way.
This guest post was written by David Maddenfor Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.
Things can always be faster when you work in a warehouse or distribution center. Speed has become the name of the game when it comes to staying competitive in the global supply chain. Major players like Amazon and Walmart have distribution centers all over the world, pumping out packages at lightning speed.
If you want to keep your customers satisfied, you need to keep things moving in your warehouse or distribution center. Use these tips to keep up the pace and make your facility as efficient as possible.
1. Keep your warehouse organized
Nothing stymies operational efficiency like a poorly-organized warehouse. Your facility should have a thoroughly thought-out floor plan that your employees can navigate with ease. The space should be organized so that your staff members can access products and packages without getting in each other’s way. Your employees may need to process different orders simultaneously, so they should have plenty of space to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. Today’s warehouses are much larger than they were in the past, creating more space for speed and efficiency.
Items should be clearly labeled on the shelf and organized in a way that makes sense for your facility. You can group packages by their contents, destination or point of origin. This layout should make sense to your employees, so they’ll be able find the items they need without having to look at a spreadsheet.
2. Prioritize fast-moving products
Keep your priorities in mind when organizing your warehouse. Every element of your chosen layout should favor your fastest-moving products. Bestsellers don’t tend to sit on the shelf for very long, so make sure your employees can easily retrieve them at all times. Your employees shouldn’t have to go all the way to the back just to retrieve a product, especially if it’s one of your most popular items. You can help everyone save time by moving these fast-selling products to the front of your warehouse. They should be kept low to the ground and close to the loading dock.
Your entire warehouse layout should focus on moving better-performing products to the front, while keeping the less popular products at the back. Go over your inventory and rate your products based on how often your employees need to retrieve them. This should inform your thinking as you change the layout of your facility.
3. Automate the data collection process
Running a warehouse these days is all about data. Digital technology can take the guesswork out of inventory and warehouse management with employees scanning products every step of the way. Your facility should collect as much data on your products as possible, including where they’re coming from, when they arrive, what condition they are in, where they’re going and when they’re set to leave. You can use this data to keep tabs on the location of your products. At any given moment, you’ll know exactly how many products are being stored at your facility.
But in order to improve efficiency, you need to automate the data collection process as much as possible. Your staff members should automatically retrieve this data as they go about unloading and scanning items that have just arrived at the facility and getting them ready for the last leg of their journey. You can use handheld scanners and radio frequency identification tags to simplify this process. Automating data collection also reduces costly errors like inaccurate data entry.
Warehouse automation technology is already a $1.9 billion industry, and it’s expected to balloon to $22 billion by the year 2021. If you want to stay competitive, it might be time to invest in automation. You’ll have all the information you need at your fingertips without adding any additional steps to your operations.
4. Use inventory management software
As you collect all this data on the shipping containers and products moving in and out of your facility, you can save time by sending that info right to your company’s inventory management software. This technology helps you make sense of all the data in a matter of seconds. You can quickly see how many products are on the shelf, when shipments need to go out and when new shipments are due to arrive. Software programs are synced to your data collection devices, so you won’t have to worry about entering that information twice.
[bctt tweet=”Artificially intelligent software programs can even help you anticipate future outcomes like inventory shortages, delivery delays and other potential problems. ” username=”Fronetics”]
Certain artificially intelligent software programs can even help you anticipate future outcomes like inventory shortages, delivery delays and other potential problems. They keep a log of the history of your facility’s operations to help better predict what’s going to happen in the future.
5. Save time with cross docking
If you have fast-moving products coming through the door, you can save time with what’s known as cross docking. Instead of putting these products back on the shelf only to have your employees retrieve them hours later, direct them to a temporary staging area for scanning and inventory purposes. This temporary staging area should be close to the loading dock. When the products are ready for the next leg of their trip, your employees can quickly retrieve them and get them out the door without having to look for them on the shelf.
6. Increase visibility with better lighting
The key to operational efficiency isn’t always as complicated as it seems. Sometimes all you need is better lighting. Warehouses tend to have tall ceilings, and lighting the space, including all those individual shelves, can be a challenge. If you want to be speed up your warehouse operations, everyone should be able to see clearly as they go about their business. Staff members should be able to read labels and use containers without having to squint. Keeping the lights on also helps your employees stay awake, especially if they’re getting a shipment ready in the middle of the night.
Working towards warehouse efficiency
Making your warehouse more efficient starts with having the right layout in place. Your products should be organized according to their popularity. You should automatically collect data on your products as soon as they enter the facility. And always make sure your employees have enough space and light to do their jobs. Follow these steps and you’ll get orders out the door in record time.
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